Your letters to the Helensburgh Advertiser: April 13, 2017

Surely it is time to be more specific as to what improvements are needed. For example, what is “something for kids to do”?

Then, at least, the debate can move on to the difference between what people want and what is actually needed or even possible and how their suggestions measure up to the economic reality of living in a town with a population of 14,000 during times of austerity.

In the end we all want things to be better but, as Donald Trump has recently been finding out, it is easier to be the critical outsider than the person who has to come up with and then implement the big ideas.

Robin Irvine

4 Abercromby Place West, Helensburgh

At this time when we look towards the council elections in May, it was very interesting to read such conflicting views about our town in the Comments section of last week’s Helensburgh Advertiser.

After hearing from the national press that Helensburgh is one of the best places to live in the United Kingdom, one particular letter in the Advertiser made the comment ‘the only good thing about Helensburgh is the train to Glasgow’. (Please send him a one way ticket.)

The truth is that, like all towns today, we suffer from a lack of funding. Our council has to deliver a huge package of services with an income controlled largely by the Scottish Government who also control the ability of local government to raise funds through the very unsatisfactory council tax system.

Our Argyll and Bute Administration deserves high praise for what they have achieved over the past five years in the face of inadequate funding.

We owe a great debt of gratitude to councillors like Dick Walsh, who selflessly, and in the face of much abuse from members of the public, work so hard to make the best of an impossible job.

The Liberal Democrats, and those councillors who put aside their party differences to make up an administration which achieves so much with so little, should have our heartfelt thanks and understanding.

Jane Grant

Via email

I would like to thank the good person, or people, who cleaned the shore at the Ardencaple on Friday, April 7.

This shore has been an eyesore and a danger to people and wildlife for many months and it is great to see it litter free again.

It has been heartening to see the communities of Helensburgh, Rhu and elsewhere take action to tackle the marine litter issue that is devastating our environment. I hope other communities and authorities will also take action to care for the Clyde so we can have an environment we can take pride in again.

A neighbour and I 'adopted' a stretch of shore at Rhu a year or so ago and we have been doing our best to keep it free of litter by doing regular beach cleans and putting the resulting full black bags of litter next to a public bin, which the council then collects a few days later. 

This has made a real difference and people seem less likely to discard their takeaways, cans and plastic bottles on the shore now because it's clean.

However, the roadside verges, bus stops and parking bays, particularly those around Faslane, are shocking, and I would urge the MoD and Babcock to take action on these and to show that they respect our communities.

Michael D'Arcy

Via email

So Councillor Mulvaney tells us in his election flyer that every vote for the Conservatives is a vote against a referendum on Scottish independence.

Does that mean that every vote against the Conservatives indicates support for a referendum?

Or is Gary Mulvaney guilty of obsessing about the constitution while neglecting the day job of running local services?

Eleanor Hunter

Helensburgh

Not many years ago there used to be a stone, about two and a half feet high, standing below the A82 on the shores of Loch Lomond between Tarbet and Ardlui.

It was raised in memory of John MacDonald, gamekeeper on Sir James Colquhoun's estate, who died on the night of November 30, 1900. Mr MacDonald, aged 36, was cycling home in the darkness from Tarbet when he hit the wall of a bridge and was thrown into the river 30 feet below. 

When his body was discovered by a tramp the following morning, Mr MacDonald's dog, who accompanied him wherever he went, was found sitting beside the body. Mr MacDonald left a widow and two children.

The memorial stone, with a Gaelic inscription, has collapsed and is now lying face down. It ought to be lifted and put up either on its original site or moved to a more accessible place either by the local landowner or the National Park Authority. 

I would be grateful if anyone could give me further information about John MacDonald and who erected the stone and when.

Iain Thornber

Knock House, Morvern, Oban

In the run up to the local elections in May I hope  that our electors realise that what this area and the rest of Scotland requires is a good educational system for all our young people.

Education is at the heart of building the high-wage, high-skill economy  that we need here in Scotland, but since 2011 the SNP have cut the money  available to schools. The results are clear: we have fallen in the international education rankings. 

As the leader of Scottish Liberal Democrats, Willie Rennie, said this week: “Scottish Liberal Democrat councillors will be local champions putting pressure on the Scottish Government to deliver a transformational investment in education, not fixate on independence.” 

We need emphasis on building up the economy by having more apprenticeships and college places. We in Scotland have fallen seriously behind the rest of Britain in gross domestic product and incomes despite receiving so much money from the Barnett formula. 

Holyrood has to start working on bettering life for everyone and take control instead of blaming Westminster at every turn.  

The record has stuck in a groove and we have heard all the excuses too often to believe them any more.

Margaret Horrell,

Via email

No one can have missed the developing shambles that is the UK government party's behaviour in trying to negotiate Brexit since triggering Article 50.

First we had the letter from Theresa May to the EU linking trade deals with sharing security information. Are we seriously in a state that would now trade human safety to save money on tariffs?

Then we had the former Conservative leader Michael Howard raising the prospect of war with "another Spanish speaking country" over Gibraltar when no military or expansionist threats had even been made by Spain.

Whilst those two examples were bad enough, of equal concern to the business community in Scotland would be the performance of the Secretary of State for Brexit, David Davis, at a committee of MPs on March 15.

Asked if a new economic assessment had been made by the UK government Mr Davis replied: “Under my time, no...You don’t need a piece of paper with numbers on it to have an economic assessment.”

Imagine the response if a business person went to their bank manager asking for a loan on that basis.

But his performance also got worse.

He didn't know the implications of leaving with no deal on the transfer of personal data, which is needed for the tech industry.

He “assumed” the ‘Open Skies’ agreement – which has reduced airfares across the EU – will be lost.

And then he confirmed financial services will probably lose ‘passporting rights’ to trade in the EU: “I would expect that to be the case, that’s an area of uncertainty.”

Again, would any business person pass muster for a loan from their bank if they approached them with such a business plan?

The UK faces going back 60 years in time by falling out of not only the European single market but every existing and pending trade agreements the EU has ever signed; a customer base of more than a billion people.

Yet the UK Conservative government's approach to diplomatic negotiations appears to be a mixture of arrogance, ignorance, incompetence and hubris.

There is a chance this May to show the UK government that its behaviour is unacceptable. Any votes the Conservatives get in the approaching local elections will only encourage this behaviour. They need sent a message to shake them back into reality.

James MacDonald

Benderloch, Oban

Do the Westminster parties standing in Scotland's local elections have any actual policies so voters know what they will get if they happen to take control of those councils? Because looking at their leaflets paints a picture of parties obsessed with issues that councils have no control over.

Despite an opinion poll showing 72 per cent of voters place local services as their top priority in the council elections the Westminster parties' leaflets are obsessed about the constitution and putting Westminster before Scotland.

We have a Tory party trying to protect their Westminster government's plans to drag Scotland out the single market despite a clear majority in Scotland voting against it. Labour just sounds like an echo of the Tories as we hear even more about how they will willingly ally with the Tories to put them into power in Scotland's local authorities.

Voters would be right to ask why those parties do not seem keen to tell them how much they will increase council tax, rents or local charges; or what cuts they plan for local services. The marginal absence from their literature of these issues and lack of any headline proposals to benefit their local areas is striking.

Andrew Stuart

66 Norfolk Court, Glasgow

Thanks to research and modern technology, we live in an era when medical breakthroughs are producing results that truly transform people’s lives. But it’s shocking that the foremost drug that people with Parkinson’s rely on, those like my brother-in-law, has not changed in over 50 years.

This is not because it’s so effective that no new medication is needed – far from it. Parkinson’s is a relentless, cruel condition that causes immense suffering, from deep depression and pain to complete immobility.

According to new findings from Parkinson’s UK, released to highlight this month’s Parkinson’s Awareness Week, misunderstanding about Parkinson’s is still widespread, and it’s time to create greater awareness that it causes so much more than just a tremor.

We need to drive forward ground-breaking research: the science is ready and we have the knowhow to make this happen.

This year is the 200th anniversary of the condition being described by Dr James Parkinson, and Parkinson’s UK have launched their first ever public fundraising appeal, We Won’t Wait, to raise the funds urgently needed to tackle the condition head on.

It will be too late for my beloved brother-in-law, but I would love to see a medical breakthrough for Parkinson’s during my lifetime, and I hope that your readers will join me in donating to We Won’t Wait. Every penny brings us closer to new and better treatments and to the day when no one fears a diagnosis of Parkinson’s.

To find out more about the We Won’t Wait campaign and to donate, please visit wewontwait.parkinsons.org.uk

Jane Asher

President, Parkinson's UK